Thursday, November 02, 2006

Arghhh!!

Perhaps an individual is best characterized by what irritates him the most. All of us would want everybody else to be perfect but since we are not (and as a corollary), nobody else is too, we frequently get irritated by what we deem as foibles in other people. Coming to the point, a good way of characterizing people could be what qualities they deem most reprehensible in others; which make someone's blood boil which in others wouldn't merit other than a raised eyebrow.

There are two things that irritate me the most:

1. When people/newspapers talk of statistics and anecdotal evidence to draw out trends: This post is in a lot of ways inspired by this week's issue of Business World (a magazine which I otherwise read/respect), which talks of the Indian youth. Now, they talk about the entire Indian youth with their sample population restricted to the mega-urban youth only, those which can talk about cellphones, gadgets, the likes, a section which is not more than 1/8th of the total "Indian youth". However, it is not only Business World I find guilty in such cases, almost all newspapers, carry opinions/surveys/statistics based on an elite section of the society but tout it as the voice of the nation. I can go on and on, and some day I will, but will restrict myself to this much today.

2. When people are tardy and remain nonchalant: All my life, my goal has been to meet targets and timelines. I realise people have different competency levels and can't meet targets sometimes but I can't forgive two things:a. When people realise that a particular deadline is unviable and stuff IS gonna get delayed, why do they accept such deadline. Most probably, if the person in front of you is sane enough, he'll realise the same and address it.b. When stuff is in the process of getting delayed, why can't the knowledge be flagged early enough. It affects other arrangements of the person and an early warning can go a long way in keeping the situation from getting out of hand.